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Ghost jobs are wreaking havoc on tech workers

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Re: Ghost jobs are wreaking havoc on tech workers

#61

Post by astrange »

lurking15 wrote: post #52
KerrAvon wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

H1B has evolved into a bizarre collaborative scam between the government and tech corporations; there is, in fact, a US citizen who can fill any software engineering role a US company has.

It's an outrage once you work at these companies and behold the sheer dysfunction and they're all getting paid wages native American citizens would take.

The model that Americans would take any job if the wages were high enough is simple but obviously false. For manual labor there's no amount of money you could pay Americans to be farmworkers. For desk jobs there's no amount that'll overcome Americans' cultural belief that you can't do math unless you were born as a special sort of person who is "good at math".

Re: Ghost jobs are wreaking havoc on tech workers

#62

Post by CoastalCoder »

zero-sharp wrote: post #40
matt3210 wrote: post #2

I’m not shocked at all. Another issue is recruiters posting fake jobs and asking for references as step one. Soon as I say “I don’t provide references until the last step, and only to the company hiring” they hang up on me

Yea this is a weird one. Some job applications actually require me to fill in reference contact information. I can't submit the application without that detail. Of course, I try to skirt it. Is this normal?

I don't think I've ever encountered that in the U.S.

Re: Ghost jobs are wreaking havoc on tech workers

#63

Post by volkk »

nickff wrote: post #12
ryanmcbride wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean the reason I can think of off the top of my head is that one is wasting the time of people who are looking for a job so they can continue to live, and the other is wasting the time of a person who's job is reviewing resumes?

I don't agree with the attitude of the grandparent poster either, but work at a small company where I've been on the receiving end of many extremely low-effort applications from ineligible individuals, so it definitely goes both ways. Companies are also bombarded with spam from recruiters, just as candidates are.

yeah, but at worst, you waste time on the dime of a company from the recruiter's/hiring manager's POV. on the other side, you're wasting precious capital (time & money) from someone who may instead be hanging out with their kids, or taking care of their sick mother--i understand these are contrived examples. from a pure utalitarian perspective, both are a complete waste of time. but from a moral/ethical perspective, i think there's a clear loser in terms of precious time wasted.

Re: Ghost jobs are wreaking havoc on tech workers

#65

Post by rightbyte »

FredPret wrote: post #47
toomuchtodo wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, this is the problem. We are doing a Kabuki dance where there is an illusion of good faith and meritocracy, when really, it's just a brutalist labor order book between employers and employees, unless you have a network (which takes years to build and might still prove useless if you can't refer someone into your org because blah blah hiring pipeline that is really just garbage anyway). For example, someone at the…

There is a cost to the employer. Any smallish 1-2 hour meeting with a couple of people on it can easily cost thousands if you work out people’s hourly wage. Add on the context-switching costs impacting the rest of their workdays. Then add the reputational damage among jobseekers - when word gets out that a company is a timewaster, qualified people will be less likely to apply.

I guess there is some cost for the job ad too.

It is quite common with some sort of time consuming application process before interviews, where only the applicant waste time. Like, the employers seem to use "willing to waste time" as some sort of filter.

E.g. my brother applied for a job this summer and was pre-screened by some sort of chat bot, which I guess will become way more common.

Re: Ghost jobs are wreaking havoc on tech workers

#66

Post by lurking15 »

astrange wrote: post #61
lurking15 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's an outrage once you work at these companies and behold the sheer dysfunction and they're all getting paid wages native American citizens would take.

The model that Americans would take any job if the wages were high enough is simple but obviously false. For manual labor there's no amount of money you could pay Americans to be farmworkers. For desk jobs there's no amount that'll overcome Americans' cultural belief that you can't do math unless you were born as a special sort of person who is "good at math".

I'm not sure how this applies to what I said.

Re: Ghost jobs are wreaking havoc on tech workers

#67

Post by vunderba »

Eumenes wrote: post #51
thrw42A8N wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really. You can't get an expert in most recent European or Asian technology (for example 5G mobile network backbone) in the US.

H1b isn't about "experts", there are other visas for that (eb1 or o1). H1b's purpose it to find talent after search has been "exhausted" locally. That is rarely done in good faith.

Agreed, you're really reaching if your company implies that it needs to search abroad to find a dev who's proficient with react...

Re: Ghost jobs are wreaking havoc on tech workers

#68

Post by busterarm »

lurking15 wrote: post #52
KerrAvon wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

H1B has evolved into a bizarre collaborative scam between the government and tech corporations; there is, in fact, a US citizen who can fill any software engineering role a US company has.

It's an outrage once you work at these companies and behold the sheer dysfunction and they're all getting paid wages native American citizens would take.

It's also an outrage how much leverage companies have over their H1B employees (especially from India, etc).

If you have any long-term H1B coworkers from less-favored nations, I guarantee you there's a heartbreaking story they have to tell you if you ask.

I work with a super high-performing guy with a Masters degree who has been at my company for 15 years and gets treated super poorly by the company. He still is probably 10 years away from getting a naturalization interview and has no hope of switching jobs in the meantime (and has children that are citizens...).

Re: Ghost jobs are wreaking havoc on tech workers

#69

Post by UncleOxidant »

KerrAvon wrote: post #38
DebtDeflation wrote: post #28

Many companies have policies requiring that all jobs have to be posted both internally and externally before being filled. The intent is to prevent Sam the VP from just slotting his buddy into the job. At the end of the day, Sam the VP is just going to slot his buddy into the job but now you made a whole bunch of people apply for a job that was never available to them. Same thing happens with H1B/PERM, except now it'…

H1B has evolved into a bizarre collaborative scam between the government and tech corporations; there is, in fact, a US citizen who can fill any software engineering role a US company has.

> there is, in fact, a US citizen who can fill any software engineering role a US company has.

Right now I suspect you're probably right. But 2 or 3 years ago?

If you're right then why would companies want to go through all of the extra paperwork and hoops to hire an H1B right now? Maybe the answer is "they can pay less"? But I'm not sure if it's actually all that much less than they could pay someone who's been looking for work for six months to a year or more.

Re: Ghost jobs are wreaking havoc on tech workers

#70

Post by de6u99er »

What a colossal waste of everybody's time.

I wonder how demoralizing this must be on HR workers, having to post a job, screen CV's, trying to stay professional while knowing that the hiring manager actually doesn't care, having to constantly put people with hopes off, and ultimately let people feel they are not good enough just because some C-hole wants to bring in his buddy who's most likely not half as competent as the people who were rejected.

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